Cascade to Highway D61:
A pleasant trip on a very pretty river, this tine of the Maquoketa River’s North Fork offers a morsel that’s toothsome and scrumptious. Relatively short on account of logistics, combine this trip with four miles of neighboring Whitewater Creek for some of the best kayak-canoe canyoneering northeastern Iowa offers. Either way, outrageous rock outcrops, sheer cliffs, bluffs, and boulders await, along with lots of riffles and light rapids. The only caveats are fickle water levels and leaf foliage that obstructs the wild geology.
Rating: ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Trip Report Date: June 2, 2024
Skill Level: Beginner-Intermediate
Class Difficulty: Class I-II rapids at the put-in (optional), then mostly quietwater.
Gradient:
~4′ per mile
Gauge Recorded on this Trip:
Fulton: ht/ft: 5.8 | cfs: 1300
Recommended Levels:
This is a very high water level. The rapids were cushy, wet, and fun, but the water itself was chocolate milk. Despite the high level, the current was not pushy or unsafe. Ideally, this trip should be paddled between 4 and 5′.
Put-In:
Cascade Riverfront Park, Pierce Street, Cascade, Iowa
GPS: 42.29902, -91.01244
Take-Out:
Highway D61, (on Whitewater Creek) East of Cascade, Iowa
GPS: 42.27778, -90.9371
Time: Put in at 11:40a. Out at 1:40p.
Total Time: 2h
Miles Paddled: 7.25
Wildlife:
Great blue herons, bald eagles, barred owls, songbirds, mergansers, pelicans, soft-shell turtles, muskrat, and a farm kitten.
Shuttle Information:
5.5 miles north and west on Highway D61 from Whitewater Creek to Cascade. Doable by bicycle, but not ideal – vehicles take this road fast and there’s no paved shoulder. It’s Iowa.
Background:
This trip has been on the to-do list for nearly ten years, but it’s a mischievously fickle river to catch at the right water level. What’s the right water level? Good question. Our man on the stream in Iowa, author Nate Hoogeveen, puts it this way in the indispensable guidebook, Paddling Iowa: “400 cfs usually yields to pleasant paddling.” Usually? Pleasant? Not terribly helpful, but perhaps there was a deadline crunch before the text was sent to the publisher. Plus it’s better than nothing. Nonetheless, the gauge is located waydownstream from Cascade, and it’s often below 400 cfs. For a two-hour drive from Madison, that’s not the most comfortable gamble. Especially after the cursed precedent of the Little Maquoketa (aka 10.5 miles of kayak walking).
Besides, there are approximately one cajillion other rivers I could paddle that are also two hours away, less water-dependent, and not in Iowa.
In a sense, this is an odd trip. Why? Because the next bridge after Cascade is a staggering 18 miles downriver. Now, to be fair, that’s not an unreasonable length, although it is on the long side for day-trip paddling. But in the lush flush of summertime foliage, 18 miles is a long corridor where the bluffs are fully awash in green leaves, camouflaging all but all of the rock outcrops. Also, absent any rapids, such a stretch will invariably feel monotonous. Trust me on this: I paddled 12 of these 18 miles back in 2018, our first taste of the North Fork, and toward the end, despite the lack of development, it felt like a fish poached a little too long.
As a result of the wanting accesses, paddlers disinterested in such a distance commitment have only one option: turn left into the mouth of nearby Whitewater Creek and paddle upstream for a third of a mile to the bridge, for a short trip of about 7 miles. Sorry, folks, but those are the only two options for this segment of the river. (Starting upstream of Cascade is a no-go on account of lacking accesses, impounded water backed up from the dam downtown, and then no safe portage around said dam.)
But there is a consolation prize, and that is making this paddle a double feature by tacking on four miles of Whitewater Creek after paddling the North Fork – it’s the same take-out for both trips. Who doesn’t like a twofer? And Whitewater Creek, when high enough, is sublime.
Overview:
The general rule of thumb in paddling is DON’T RUN DAMS, even if/when they look runnable. The one in Cascade is no exception, especially at the unusually high water level for our paddle. Could it be run at lower/normal levels? Maybe, but I sincerely doubt the juice would be worth the squeeze. Besides, if one is seeking bragging rights by running a dumb dam in Cascade, Iowa, one’s got bigger bats in the belfry to shoo away.
Before the dam was installed, there was a picturesque series of limestone ledges reminiscent of those still extant in Sheboygan Falls, WI, or the original St Anthony Falls in Minneapolis. Today, the wonder of raw geology is drowned under the backwater of the dam, although a historic flood one hundred years ago also contributed to the fall of the falls. Nonetheless, this is how Cascade got its name.
There is no official launching access here, though convention has paddlers begin down from the silo, via a path on the right bank, approximately 800′ below the bridge. Since the water was up and we wanted as much “meat” on our fork as possible, we launched in between the dam and the remnants of the original falls, where there is a Class I-II ledge. To do so, we parked on the road (Pierce St) and walked down the steps at Cascade Riverfront Park, to some limestone ledges comprising the right bank. If the river is low, then there would be little purpose in going through these motions; you’d just launch below the silo.
Small standing waves with some generic buildings on the right bank lead to occasional riffles. That’s about it for current for a long while, at least on this trip. Tree-lined banks and slow water dominate the first mile after the initial flash in the pan. A quick cameo appearance of suburbia occurs on the left in a right-hand bend. The river here is a narrow 40ish feet wide.
A nearly mile-long straightaway occurs next, but the scenery becomes increasingly wooded. Soon, you’ll notice a picnic table or two along the right bank, the tell-tale sign of a campground. Named Riverview Ridge, its musical nomenclature complements its poetic invocation: there’s a ridge with a view of the river, indeed. A smorgasbord of boulders and outcrops are discernible here and there, first on the right and then the left, some in the middle of the river itself. Together with a stretch or two of sandy beaches, this is a very pleasant segment.
You’ll see an enormous ridge loom directly in front of you. The river will bend to the right at its base, but take your time here, as the scene is magnificent. Yes, alas, there is a house at the top of the bluff, but it’s easy to look past it, for there before you is a sheer-faced cliff 100′ high if it’s an inch. This is certainly the most dramatic display, but the next couple miles offer some of the prettiest and most intimate paddling in northeastern Iowa. One horseshoe-shaped loop follows another as you paddle past limestone walls, boulders, and rock outcrops. You’re in the bottom of a wooded ravine canyon, a truly unique experience – especially in Iowa.
Hoogeveen writes of “rock chimney formations” lining both sides of the river in a southbound gorge. We noticed nothing of the sort, though that’s probably on account of the foliage saving such secrets for spring and autumn. He also likens the boulders to the size of “cattle and elephants,” which I personally love, not least because how many pachyderms are there in Iowa to compare huge limestone blocks to?
But then it’s like the topography gets chopped in half – more than half, actually. And for the remainder of this trip the river is nothing but low-cut banks, row crops, and two quarries astride the river in a rather weird industrial wasteland kind of way. Oh, and of course the signature calling card of so many Iowa rivers: enormous, sprawling dumps of crumbled concrete along the banks.
Why, Iowa, why?
Finding the mouth of Whitewater Creek, while critical since the next port of call is a long way’s away, is quite easy thanks to it being precipitated by limestone abutments from an abandoned bridge that you can’t miss. After you spot that and paddle past it, be on the look-out for a stream coming in from the left.
To borrow the hilariously apt use of “frenemy” that Denny employed earlier this summer to describe the relationship between high water and paddlers, the “uphill climb” that is paddling into Whitewater Creek to get to the bridge access at Highway D61 is a case in point: too low, it’s impassable and will require walking your boat one third of a mile; yet at high levels it’s quite the resistance workout. Worth it? Sure. An unwelcome way to end a trip? Kind of.
Take out on the left on the downstream side of the bridge to follow the faint but defined path from the river to the road.
What we liked:
It’s always fun to begin a trip like riding a bronco right out of the gates. In this case, the Class I-II ledge below the dam in Cascade and then the modest wave train in its wake. It’s reasonably easy to run that rapid, get out, schlep, and run it again, if one were so inclined. I had a fair amount of water come over the bow in my open canoe, so I was good with the one-and-done. But it is a fun little ledge, especially at unusually high levels.
The star of the show here is the landscape and geology. There is, of course, the stately sheer-faced cliff that towers above you 100′ high. Even with a private residence situated there, it’s a remarkable sight. But the jungle-esque segment that follows has a captivating, saturating feel to it that, if only for a singular moment, obliterates all thoughts of corn and hogs; it’s a rich and wild postcard from the Paleozoic before the state of Iowa became one enormous farm. That booster shot of the primordial past is pretty cool!
Finally, we loved doubling down on our day trip and doing the best section of Whitewater Creek as an apt digestif to our Maquoketa fork. Whitewater Creek is such a wonderful experience unto itself, but it’s too short to inspire paddlers from afar to drive several hours to paddle it alone. But here it makes perfect sense to add on, and we loved it. While brief, it is a veritable canyon that’s just gorgeous.
What we didn’t like:
Admittedly, a broad brush of chocolate milk-like water does not the prettiest picture make. Personally, I’d prefer brown-cloudy water to scraping any day, but there’s something about paddling a river when it’s super high that almost feels like cheating. Maybe it’s the hunch that one is being cheated out of seeing the substrate below you. Or maybe it’s the notion that after waiting so long for a river to be at least minimally high, you end up doing it at a preposterous level that’s three times higher. Goldilocks, you’re something else…
Speaking of extremes, this trip is either incredibly pretty or really dull – depending on which stretch you’re on, the first or second half. Similarly, whereas you need to do nothing in the first couple hundred yards but stay straight, due to the frisky current, paddling against the current up Whitewater Creek was a grueling slog. Even though it’s only 1/3 of a mile, it was tough sledding, especially in the heat and humidity. You could’ve stuck a fork in us; we were done!
If we did this trip again:
Like so many rivers in northeastern Iowa, the best time to paddle this river is when the trees are bare – whether that’s in autumn or early spring (or even in winter, if conditions allow and you’re outfitted for such an adventure). The rock outcrops on this segment of the North Fork of the Maquoketa River as well as Whitewater Creek are truly stupendous and deserve unabashed visibility without leafy camouflage.
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Related Information:
Makquoketa River North Fork I: Highway D61 to 60th Avenue
Makquoketa River North Fork II: 185th Street to Highway Y31
Guide: Iowa DNR’s Maquoketa River Water Trail Guide
Guide: Iowa DNR’s Expedition + Fishing Guide
Wikipedia: Maquoketa River
Photo Gallery:
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